Many users are posting some comments on the Mac App Store about TrashMe being unable to uninstall apps. We also receive some emails about the same “issue”, so we think it’s time to clarify this restriction a little bit more.

First, you need to know that publishing an application on the Mac App Store is something quite difficult, especially for small developers. Apple has written very restrictive rules that developers must conform to. One of these rules is about privileges: an application must not ask for user’s password in any case.

But some applications installed on your Mac have special privileges, mostly applications installed through the Mac App Store. You can test by yourself: if you try to put one of those apps to the Trash, OS X will ask for your account’s password. The problem is that TrashMe can’t ask for your password due to Apple restrictions. This is why you can see a warning message when this situation occurs. Hopefully, we’ve developed a small add-on that will allow you to uninstall this sort of applications, by asking your password.

We think this is a balanced solution: being on the Mac App Store is a chance for us, because it’s very easy to buy and update application for end-users. We didn’t find any alternative, after many hours spent to discuss with Apple employees. So, we hope our customers will understand that this is not an issue, but “on-purpose”…

Check our Frequently Asked Questions to download this add-on.